A great number of attractants for insect pests have been disclosed in the art. Such attractants comprise typically fermented materials or hydrolyzed proteinaceous materials which release volatile ingredients into the atmosphere, which tend to attract pests including flying insect pests. The released volatile materials include a vast array of volatile compositions including alcohols, aldehydes, amines, hydrocarbons, etc. Ethanol has been identified as one component of such natural attractant compositions. These compositions have been used without significant control over release rates. Many volatile compositions having some risk of flammability have been avoided as attractants because of safety considerations. To the best of our knowledge, no effective commercially successful control release system for neat, volatile attractants, such as ethanol, has been developed in the prior art.
Further, our review of the literature in this area indicates that volatile attractants, such as ethanol alone or in combination with other volatile components, have attracted no effective commercial attention, and the prior art provides no teaching with respect to the effective release rate for ethanolic attractants.
In large part, the use of controlled release systems for insect attractants has been directed to dispensing a variety of pheromones from a composition that can release the pheromone at their inherently low effective concentration. Pheromones are most commonly impregnated into porous plastic or onto natural materials such as corncob grits. Therefore, a great need exists for a controlled release device for a volatile attractant composition in which the device exhibits an effective release rate of attractant that continues to maintain a useful attracting concentration of the attractant in the environment during the useful life of the device. While the rate may slowly decline, the components of the controlled release device cooperate to maintain an effective release rate for the volatile attractant that can continue to attract pests, including flying insect pests, until the attractant is consumed.